Pune civic body introduces 3 robots to remove manual scavenging

04 May 2022 CW Team

The Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has launched three advanced robots named ‘Bandicoot’ to clean and maintain city manholes safely without workers entering the manholes.

This initiative will provide more safety in the maintenance of city manholes utilising advanced technologies.

Manual scavenging needs humans to enter manholes and clean them physically, and this practice has claimed the lives of many workers. To solve this issue, PMC is now employing robots to clean sewers. This initiative provides safer and dignified job possibilities to the sanitation workers as robot operators with training and rehabilitation programs. The user interface of the Bandicoot Robot is developed for manual scavengers, which is interactive and user friendly, and would present a dignified work profile to these workers as well.

The Bandicoot robot is the world’s first manhole cleaning robot designed by MakeInIndia and Swachh Bharat, an initiative by Genrobotics. Bandicoot robot comes with a robotic arm and different sensors that assist the robot to perform the cleaning step more efficiently. These robots are also designed with 4 IP68 waterproof cameras to clean the manholes more efficiently, even under low light conditions.

On 2nd May 22, the Honourable Municipal Commissioner, IAS, Vikram Kumar, launched the Bandicoot Robots at the Pune MC office.

The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Government of India (Goi), awarded the Bandicoot Robotic technology as an AMRUT Tech Challenge as a Promising Innovative Solution for sanitation. This technology has also been exported to different countries to enhance safety in spaces such as sewer manholes, Refinery pits, etc.

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